


Elastic

by blazingphoenix



Category: Fringe
Genre: AU, F/M, Post-Canon, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 13:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6659785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazingphoenix/pseuds/blazingphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"This was just a lay point, a pit stop before the last lap."</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Peter doesn't think this new world will last. Post 5.13</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elastic

**Author's Note:**

> I started this almost three years ago now, and I've never been able to write an end that I was happy with. But, I think I just need to leave it now. Unbeta'd

Peter's had a feeling this has been happening for a while now.

It's the small changes in the wind, the sky that seems less blue. The roll of gray clouds seem more pressing over the following days. The grass of the park they frequent seems more brittle, more yellow, lacking the rich nutrients it used to have.

Or rather, it's just simply different.

He suspects something's wrong.

He suspects that, despite all its familiarity, the world they have come back to is not the world they left.

***

There are subtle changes in the environment, both human and physical that he notices, that hit him like a wave of nausea crashing on the banks of his perception. The resulting disorientation is something he hasn't been accustomed to in a long time, the last being when he first arrived in this reality, out of Reiden Lake, butt naked and so cold that his balls retreated back into his body. That was back when no one knew him, no one trusted him and he didn't have a home. But now, he has one here; built up a family from scratch and left marks on the world around him: a father, a wife and a daughter.

And life is threatening to take that away again.

There are days when he just stares at the paper Walter sent him, his last gift to his son from beyond the metaphorical grave: a white tulip, drawn with black lines.

He had watched the tape Walter left on a table in an empty lab, with a cow mooing profusely when he entered. For a reason, half the lab was ambered, giving everything a bright orange hue. He remembers though, why Walter did it, remembers a future no longer coming to pass. He also remembers the possible repercussions of the actions they have done.

This plan is going to reset time, Olivia had said. Peter, we're going to get back our daughter.

If life was good, if it had always worked out the way they wanted it to, Peter would have had no trouble believing it; that life would give back their daughter, leave them with a happy family to last the days. But that has never been the case, and life for them has always seemed to lead to something worse.

Time is a fickle thing, and messing with it has unforeseen consequences.

Peter can't help but think that everything is about to fall into hell.

***

Five weeks in, and Peter notices something else.

It's not just the world around him that's changed, but people too.

He notices it in Olivia first. Behind her eyes, a new fire burns, brighter than he's ever remembered them being. The air of confidence that surrounds her has thickened, and Peter can sense something about her has changed.

It's not like she's a new person though, not like when the alternate Olivia took over her life. He's learnt his lesson from that. This change is different, because she is still the same.

But this Olivia has a power about her, beyond anything he's come to know previously. Where before she was hesitant and unsure, now there's an aura of authority that runs through her veins. She is in control now, knows her strengths and her limits. Fundamentally, she shares all the qualities that he knows Olivia for, but this Olivia is also without a doubt the soldier Walter and Bell had aimed to make, all those years ago in Jacksonville.

Obviously, something's changed.

He says nothing though, because if what he thinks is happening is in fact happening, he doesn't want to dwell on it. Unlike before, where he didn't have time to say goodbye, this time he's determined to make the best of it.

Because, the truth is, he's scared.

He's scared because he's starting to recognize the changes in himself too. The memories of his childhood, usually forgotten and blurred, suddenly become the forefront of his thoughts. And they are different from the small bits of memory that he can recall, because he knows he didn't grow up with a father and mother to nurture him. He _knows_ that he ran away, that Elizabeth died from an overdose; but his memories contradict, argue that he grew up comfortably at home and never dropped out of high school. That Elizabeth - no, his mother - is alive and happy.

None of it makes sense, the vividness of non-existent memories illogical; he has had nothing to base it on.

The one thing he can think of, the one thing that would explain it, leaves him shivering in fear and expectation. It looms over him like an iron weight, waiting to be cut loose and fall, breaking anything in its way.

In this case, he is.

Peter knows he's a paradox, a man who shouldn't exist. More than once has the universe tried to course-correct, from that day he crossed over and nearly froze to death in Reiden Lake, to the day he stepped into the machine and got wiped from the pages of history. Both times, if he remembers correctly, intervention came in the shape of September, the Observer he later came to know as Donald. But Peter doesn't forget that physics is a bitch, and that time likes to play by its own set of rules.

Because the plan _was_ to reset time. No more dictators, no more dystopian world. No more death, no more sacrifice. No more Observers.

It's a game of pebbles and ripples, the flap of a wing, an action. How one thing affects another, in more ways than one and bigger in the future. Its effects are unforeseeable, because fate can tie everything to another, because one small action can leave a mark in the world around it; take that away and who knows what can come from it.

Except Peter knows the moment it'll change, because he was shown it, the mistake September made that night in Walter's lab. Or rather, Walternate's. He knows the one key thing that will change his whole life, and those related to him.

To change the future will change the past, a realization he had a little too late, and there's no way to know the full extent the action will have on the world. But he knows he won't be here, with here being the operative word for 'this' universe. He would be over 'there', because Walternate would have found the cure and not have been distracted. He would have grown up and lived with his family, went to school and lived a happy life, something the universe has already decided if his memories are anything to go by.

It's a slow way of going crazy, Peter thinks, to have his memories, his past, be overwritten by events that should have happened in the first place. It's alienating, and just strengthens his belief in not belonging. Because in the end, he really is a stranger, a man who doesn't belong.

***

He starts to spend more time in the lab, staring at the remaining amber as it glows in the sunlight. It's being chipped away slowly, by request of the university, and the once smooth surface now bends and dips like frozen waves. Today's quiet, left alone by Massive Dynamic at Peter's request. No one questions, and no one comes to look for him; he's become a common feature that no one even bothers.

Nothing moves, the frozen dust in the amber like glittering stars. He wishes he could freeze his memory, be like the dust, and not forget anymore of the life he's lived. It's come to the point his memories of running have nearly faded, replaced by less shady memories of foreign locations. No longer do they include backstreets and dimly lit bars, instead boasting bright lights and restaurants with foods you can smell from the kitchens. Peter concludes it's always been in his nature to explore, discover, except this time he stuck to the legal side of the line.

He fears about forgetting Olivia, because sometime or not, it's going to happen and he won't be able to do anything. He'll remember yesterday, and the day before, but if his memories continue disappearing as they are, he'll never remember _meeting_ her. And that scares him. To know somebody, but not remember meeting them for that first time. It's disorientating, horrifying, and the last thing the universe can take from him to solidify the fact he is _not from this world._

It's a hard truth to accept, even if he thought he had put it to rest so many years ago. As much as he feels he has made his home here, he will never truly be accepted. On those rare cases where Olivia's powers do resurface, she startles when she looks at him, and it remains a constant reminder to him that she still sees the glimmer. That glimmer that all but shouts his displacement in this world he lives in now.

Peter runs his fingers over the smooth, cool orange surface, the solid stillness in front of him. It's funny, he thinks, but the amber has more of a place in this world than he does. He spreads out his hand to lean on it as he stands, the warm heat of his palm pressing against the cold surface, condensing. He watches as the print slowly disappears, curling into itself until it no longer shows, as if it had never been there.

He stares at the relics in the amber, and admires them.

***

Quietly, and sadly, he wonders what will happen to Henrietta.

Born of parents from two different universes, she was already under scrutiny from the moment she was conceived; Peter doesn't ignore the fact that she still is. She's had every test run on her, spent a lot more of her childhood in white rooms that Peter thinks she should have ever had to endure, and there are still scars around her body that they explain away as 'vaccinations' as much as it pains both him and Olivia.

And now. Now, one of her parent's is facing the risk of being wiped from history.

Again.

At night, he lingers outside her room; watches her from the doorway on those nights which don't seem to end. Worry often plagues his mind, asking himself about her fate. She seems so peaceful, and he feels that it would be nothing short of cruel if she was to be taken so young.

Henrietta is a happy girl, a bright radiant spot in his world, everything he could ever ask for thrown into one. He knows Olivia cherishes her just as much as he does, if only with a bit more caution and reserve. Peter knows her reason though, because it's not as if they ever thought they would have this chance.

He knows for Olivia, her job has always ruled her life, her need to keep others safe. As an Agent, she need not have known exactly who she was protecting, because ultimately, she was protecting everyone. But now Henrietta, her own flesh and blood, has jumbled her priorities, because nothing is more important than family.

It's something they share, something they began to appreciate together, something that now has a physical embodiment in their daughter.

The nights sneak up on him as he worries, just like Olivia sneaks up behind him when three nights have past and he hasn't spent more than an hour in their bed. They watch their daughter sleep together, hands on backs, leaning into each other's sides.

Everything is quiet except for their breaths.

***

One night, he finds Olivia crying.

He knows, even if she is quiet, tears barely out of her eyes, and turned away with her back to him. With a tug of guilt, Peter suspects he knows and is the reason why.

The problem with an eidetic memory, as he understands, is that a person remembers _everything_. His memories of Iraq have all but disappeared; it stands to reason that Olivia has reached that point too.

It's become one of the stranger things in life, at least so far. He handles it far better than he expects, waking up to a stranger in his bed. Except she isn't. She is his wife and his world, and that could be what's keeping him sane; the innate connection he feels with Olivia, even as their histories fade and blur, creating stories that are familiar yet not.

He lies beside her, cards her hair and holds her close, arm over her side and palm spread across her stomach. In turn, she rests a hand over his, and grips his arm with the other, a solid grasp that he knows serves to reassure her.

Don't go, is what it says, don't leave.

The squeeze he replies with is half hearted.

***

The morning of his last day, Peter drives. He has no destination in mind, just something in his heart guiding him to the finish line.

Nothing can really prepare someone for being wiped from history (twice), but Peter makes the best of what he can: as much as it is possible, he's been telling himself he has been ready for this for weeks.

(He's not.)

He understands he is the last barricade against a complete reset, further than the one Walter first initiated. This was just a lay point, a pit stop before the last lap. As soon as he is removed, time can snap back into shape, an elastic band long since pulled; everything will be set back on its 'right' course, a pathway made and dictated long ago by Fate as correct.

After this, he would never have set foot on This Side, never have lived a life of outcast and running. After this, he would never have met Olivia, and Henrietta would cease to exist. After this, he will lose the things that have come the closest for him to label a home.

Goodbyes are hard, and Peter finds himself realizing why Walter chose to record a video instead.

It takes him a moment to orientate himself when he does finally come to a stop. The irony of his location makes him laugh grimly; Reiden Lake, the beginning and end of everything.

For a long time he just sits, watching the sunlight glisten off the lake. The day is calm yet power thrums through the air; he can practically feel the universe reaching its elastic limit.

Slowly, Peter closes his eyes.

***

A lone vase sits on a table, its contents arranged precisely.

A cloud of white, soft and delicate, spilling over the lips.

A sheet of paper, slightly yellowed and crinkled, peaks out from the bouquet.

A single word written amongst the simple lines of a tulip.

'Always'


End file.
